MAGAZINE ACCUSES CO[PLEY NEWS] SERVICE OF OLD LINK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100330017-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 3, 2006
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: July 9, 1977
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2006/11/07: CIA-RDP IbII314
,R" .CL.L APP EARED
CJPAC,
THE WASHINGTON POST
9 JULY 1977
By George Lardner Jr. I
day that at.aeast 23 members of the.l
Copley News Service also worked se?
cretly for: the Central Intelligence
Agency over a 20-year period in Latin
America -
The authors of the article, Joe
Trento and. Dave Roman, said the.
clandestine arrangement stemmed
from a .1953. White -House meeting-
with President' Eisenhower at fwhich?
the late publisher James S. Copley of-.
fered the help of the 'news service he
was forming., r
Copley, the magazine said, volun '
teered the news service. as "the eyes,
and ears" against. "the Communist
threat in Latin and Central America
for "our intelligence services."
The allegations. were made in the
forthcoming . August issue of Pent-
house. which added that the Copley
Press,: which also publishes the San'
Diego Union' and. Evening Tribune,..
ran a "little-FBI" that funneled hun-
dreds . of thousands of unpublished
words and pictures. about antiwar and
black protest . movements to the bu-
reau
Spokesmen for the Copley News
Service -(CNS)`and 'the parent firm,
the Copley Press, denied the asser-'
tions about clandestine ties with the
CIA.
Gerald Warren, the current editor
of the-Union, and Herb Klein, a for-
mer editor' of the paper,- confirmed
that memos were written about pro-
test groups and passed on to execu-
tives of the company, but said they
did not know, whether the memos
were then passed on to the FBI.,
The. CIA.. and the FBI refused to
comment.
The article, financed in part by the.
Fund for Investjgative Journalism,
said that Copley Press "provided cre-
dentials, information and placement
of stories for the CIA and the FBI; ex-
changed intelligence information with
the CIA for 'scoops' and planted CIA;;
and FBI stories and editorials, (and)
harbored CIA operatives on the pay-
roll of the Copley News Service and
fed stores to news-service clients at
the request of the CIA and the FBI."
Elaborating at a press conference
here, Trento, 29, now a reporter for
the Wilmington.--(Del.) News-Journal,
and Roman, 31, a former San Diego
college teacher and now a freelance
writer, said the 23- Copley employees,
most of them based in Latin America, .
Trento refused to name any of the
23 or even to describe the nature of
the CIA payments: He said he had
promised his "sources" not to divulge
such details_ . .
- Richard G. Capen Jr., senior vice
president of operations at Copley
Press, flatly denied the charges of sur-
reptitious CIA employment..
... We have been assured by the
highest levels-within the CIA that no
employees of Copley,;. Newspapers or..
CNS have been employees of the
agency," Capen said. -
Warren,' fcrmer deputy White
House press secretary under Presi-
dent ?Nixon, indicated in a telephone
interview that the assurances had
been provided to present publisher
Helen Copley about a year and a-half
ago when.. the charges first began to
surface. "1'm confident of the assur-
ances Helen got," he said. .
Capen protested: that the reports of
CIA involvement are essentially "old
allegations that Copley Newspapers
have repeatedly denied over the' past
two years. One of the authors, Joe
Trento, has printed most of these ,
claims in a mimeographed newsletter,
San Diego'Confidential, and they have
been-repeatedly denied by us."
"actually fed- information to UT-,L oper-
ative William Kelly in .1961 concern-.
ing the forthcoming Bay of Pigs inva-
sion." (They'said at the press confer-
ence they had no evidence that Gian-
doni was paid by the CIA.) .
"Giandoni.- gladly acceded- to' 'the-
CIA's request for secrecy, writing sto-
ries which downplayed the idea that
any invasion was in the works at all
and proposed that' such- speculative
stories were false," the article said. In
response, Giandoni said he once ap-
plied for a job with the CIA in Mexico-
ll
-
City but "got a form letter back-te
ing me they had no thing available." -
Turning to -the FBI, Trento and Ro-
man said-Copley Press officials regu
larly funneled reporters' memos and
news photographers' pictures about
antiwar and -other demonstrators to
the FBI. ."1Vlany reporters were asked
for a four-paragraph story and a five-
page memo," Roman said of the sys-
tem..
Warren, who was city editor at the
Union from 1963' through 1968, said in
It telephone interview that he could
riors of reporters' views. of demonstra-
tors Where theca-memos ended up: I
For their Penthouse' article, Trento
and Roman said that they had exam-
ined still-secret White :House docu-
ments in the possession of. CIA
sources and that these documents con-
firmed not only Copley's 1953 "eyes
and cars" offer but also Eisenhower's
response.
"... Eisenhower told Copley 'that
`your favors are appreciated . by 'the
country. and will be - reciprocated-_`
whenever possible'," the .-magazine-
said.
'
George Curtis, supervisory archivist
of the Dwight Eisenhower Library in:'
Abilene; Kan., told The Washington
Post that- records there show a meet-
ing between Eisenhower and Copley
was held on April 25, 1953. Copley
vice president William Shea also at-
tended the meeting,' which had been
requested by Copley's Washington bu-
reau chief, Robert W. Richards.. Pent-
house:-identified Richards as a for
mer?Office.of Strategic Services offi-
learned that my 'suspicions really
Trento and Roman said they had no-
evidence that anyof the secret-Copley
News Service links with the CIA or
the FBI were continuing.Rornan said
he believed "most of the activity'stop-
ped when", [James] Copley died" oft
Oct. 6, 1973. President Nixon praised-
him at the time as "a close friend and.
adviser" and said the nation. had.lost?
"a'noble American!' -'
According to Editor & Publisher, a'.
trade publication,' Copley News SerV-4
ice was started in 1955 as a feature
..service for the San Diego Union but
soon began providing other- clients
with its 'specialized coverage of Latin
America. At its heyday in the 1960s,it
supplied news copy by wire but is now
a supplemental service operated
largely by mail.
Approved For Release 2006/11/07: CIA-RDP88-01314R000100330017-1